The Premier League shrugged off the threat of the credit crunch last night by announcing a record television deal that will be worth almost £1.8 billion over three years. The sheer size of the deal will put smiles on the faces of the 20 Premier League chairman this morning. They were fearing the worst and a big fall in their television payouts as the the chill of recession forces mass unemployment and the closure of thousands of companies across Britain.

But the 5 per cent increase will help to bolster the finances of their clubs until 2013, when the deal ends. It is the sort of financial insurance that will be the envy not just of the sports world, but the business world, too.

BSkyB, part of News International, the parent company of The Times, is the big winner, seizing five of the six broadcast packages of 23 matches each that have been auctioned.

The satellite and cable broadcaster upped its bid from the £1.3 billion it is paying now for four packages in the present three-year deal, to £1.623 billion for the new rights, which run from 2010 to 2013.

Capello gives us reason to believe

Gary Lineker says Italian has restored the self-belief among players who had been low on confidence after previous regimes

• Gary Lineker: I bought Leicester for love of club

• Gary Lineker: I'll never be a manager

Pampered stars drive me mad, says Redknapp

The Tottenham manager wants to add steel to his team's silky skills; starting with the match against Arsenal tomorrow

• Robbie Keane says league medal would mean nothing

• Harry Redknapp says time right to cut down Arsenal

World in Motion: fighting on ice

Owen Slot considers the end of hockey brawls, David Beckham's waning popularity (in New Zealand) and dope-smoking sumos

• World in motion: best rugby interviewees, Ronaldo's regime, cannabis and porn

• World in Motion: Thorpedo’s sexuality a talking point again

• World in Motion: Andy Murray's less than prodigious effort

Related Links

• All might not be lost for Setanta

• Applying a new watching brief to football

Setanta Sports, the newcomer in the market for sports rights, is the big loser. The Irish broadcaster won a single package of 23 matches that will be aired at 5.15pm on Saturday evenings, paying only £159 million, leaving Sky with the first pick of the best matches to be screened at peak hours, such as the now traditional 4pm slot on Sunday afternoons.

Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, admitted that he was relieved at the size of the bids, which underlines the power of English football in the marketplace. It was not only money that drove the selections, but the quality of the broadcaster, a factor that leapt to the top of the agenda in the wake of the ITV debacle in the FA Cup this week. ITV embarrassingly cut to commercials two minutes from the end of extra time in the fourth-round replay between Everton and Liverpool on Wednesday night, missing the only goal.

Scudamore said: “We enjoy a fantastic reputation for the quality of our product. The great thing is that the clubs now know that the lion’s share of their income is secure, which gives them a stable base from which to plan for the future. Even in the recession, television audiences are holding up and doing well and more people are watching television. We are not immune to what is going on out there but the clubs are now well placed through the medium term.” It was then left to Setanta and ESPN, the new challenger from the United States, to attempt to outbid Sky.

Scudamore was joined by Premier League lawyers and an independent invigilator from the European Commission to ensure fair play as the bid envelopes were opened late yesterday.

But Scudamore was already confident, with the BBC paying £173 million for the highlights package. With the overseas rights for 2010 to 2013 still to be distributed, the Premier League could set another record for its total broadcasting rights, surpassing the £2.7 billion it achieved in the present round.

“We don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t do well extremely well overseas,” Scudamore added. The new deal does mean one temporary but significant change to Premier League policy, though: the proposal to play one competitive fixture abroad, the international or so-called 39th game, is now officially on the back-burner for another four years. The contracts agreed yesterday do not allow for televised Premier League matches to be played on foreign soil.

Scudamore also revealed that the Premier League’s financial masterminds have been canny with their overseas deals, signing contracts to be paid in dollars. With the value of sterling falling against the dollar, it is thought that payments from overseas broadcasters have become worth millions of pounds more over the past few months — another unexpected bonus for top-flight English football.

How the new deal will work

With 138 Premier League matches per season continuing to be televised live from 2010, four of the designated five weekend slots will generally be used.

Sky Sports will show matches on Saturday lunchtimes, with Setanta Sports broadcasting those on Saturday evenings, and the respective kick-off times are likely to be similar to the present ones of 12.45pm and 5.30pm.

Sky will have both Sunday allocations, which have 1.30pm and 4pm kick-offs, and the same broadcaster will take over Setanta's Monday evening matches, which start at 8pm. The occasional midweek games will also be predominantly on Sky.